WICKLOW ART AT SPECIAL SHOW
EXHIBITION MARKS HARBOUR 200TH. MARY FOGARTY REPORTS
SOME WELL-KNOWN Wicklow artists are exhibiting at a large national group art exhibition which opens to the public next Monday, May 8.
It’s the Dublin Painting & Sketching Club’s 139th annual exhibition which is on until Sunday, May 21, at the Concourse Gallery, Dún Laoghaire County Hall.
It includes a maritime theme this year in celebration of the 200th anniversary of the foundation of Dún Laoghaire Harbour and its East Pier. A number of Wicklow artists are showing again this year, many with maritime themed works.
They include ‘Cresting Wave’, by Brenda Malley of Charlesland Wood; ‘In Need of a Harbour’ by Niamh Harding-Miller of Ballybrew, Enniskerry, and ‘Cherries’, by Yanny Petters, of Killegar, Enniskerry.
A hardy group of members of the Dublin Painting & Sketching Club, one of Ireland’s most historic national artists’ organisations, frequently sailed from Dún Laoghaire around Dublin Bay. Called the ‘Graphic Cruisers Club’ and led by Alexander Williams RHA and George Prescott, they sailed on the latter’s wide beamed, shallow draft yacht, the ‘Iris’.
With easels lashed to the deck, they painted the boats, harbours and beaches of the bay in all weathers.
The club’s president Aidan Hickey said: ‘Present day members are less adventurous. But they have the skills to make fine paintings from observation of natural features and centuries of human activity, all along the county Dublin coastline. And from what’s been done so far, it promises to be a remarkable exhibition.’
One of the country’s largest national exhibitions, the Dublin Painting & Sketching Club annual exhibition offers a broad choice of paintings. Around 250 works are being shown by over 100 well-known contemporary artists, some 80 Club members and additional invited artists, from Dublin and other coun- ties around Ireland.
Combined with the Maritime themed paintings will be landscapes, still life, portraiture, streetscapes, floral, animal and life studies, among other subjects. These works also encompass all media and styles within the broad genre of representational art, from the figurative and traditional to the contemporary.
Lectures, demonstrations and guided tours are being organised and open to the public, some highlighting the maritime theme. There will be a ‘paint out session’ with large numbers of ‘plein-air’ artists painting from the East Pier. Advice on and valuation of paintings owned by the public will be given by Whyte’s Auctioneers’ fine art experts also during the exhibition.
For more information, go to dublinpaintingandsketchingclub.ie.